Sleepwalking and dual personality, irresistible impulse and dissociation
of ideas, strange psycho-physiological states in which the body acts while
the mind sleeps—all these were briefly described in the court of Federal
Judge Michael J. Roche yesterday as Henri Young went to trial for murder—for
murder on Alcatraz.

Accused of secretly fashioning a deadly stiletto like knife while at
work in a prison shop, and of expertly using it against Rufus McCain, fellow
convict, Young will produce a defense which is strictly psychological,
it became at once apparent.

Sol A. Abrams and James MacInnis, youthful attorneys appointed by the
court after the defendant asked for counsel “as young as possible,” divulged
their plans at once as they began questioning prospective jurors.

ATTACHES GASP.

The very fact that they were permitted to ask any questions at all caused
Federal court attaches to gasp; since 1926 it has been a strictly observed
rule—a rule laid down by Chief Justice Hughes—that in Federal district
courts the judge and not the attorneys will examine jurors; counsel may
submit lists of question which the court may ask—but that is all.

Counsel for Henri Young, however questioned jurors at great length,
by permission of the court and consent of Frank Hennessy, United States
Attorney—at such length that the entire first day was occupied in obtaining
a jury of six men and six women. Ordinarily, Federal court juries are chosen
in an hour or two.

TREND SHOWN.

The questions which the young lawyers alternated in asking showed unmistakably
what their defense will be. They wanted to know whether this juror had
ever been knocked unconscious by a blow; if that one had ever been afflicted
with somnambulism; if the other could conceive of a physical and mental
state in which a man—Henri Young, for instance—might kill another—Rufus
McCain, for instance—and do so while unconscious—-”psychologically unconscious.”

That phrase, “psychologically unconscious,” was heard over and over,
coupled sometimes with another phrase, “legally irresponsible.”

ON EXPERTS.

Over and over, too, they asked whether jurors saw anything “fantastic”
or “ridiculous” or “amusing” in a defense based on the concept of psychological
unconsciousness, and whether they would give due consideration to expert
testimony on such a concept.

Emphasis which they repeatedly laid on the fact that Young was in isolation
or solitary confinement for more than three years—and that he drove his
knife into McCain’s abdomen just eleven days after release form such confinement,
made it clear that the defense hopes to show not only that Young was “punch
drunk” but that the punches were administered by the Alcatraz “system.”

To that end, they indicated, they will summon half a dozen or more Alcatraz
convicts as witnesses, among them several who used to be considered big
shots.

VEIL PARTED.

In developing that theme, defense counsel parted the veil which the
Government throws over its penitentiary on the Rock. They disclosed, for
the first time, that Young had vainly tried to kill McCain once before
he succeeded.

On August 29, 1939—some three months before he “got” McCain by sneaking
up on him in the tailor shop—Young lunged at his former pal and long time
enemy with a metal weapon through the bars of a door in an isolation cell.

For that—Young was placed in solitary confinement on restricted rations,
the attorneys revealed.

In contrast to the long and careful questioning by jurors by the defense,
Hennessy, for the prosecution, contented himself with finding out, chiefly,
that occupants of the box have no conscientious scruples against the death
penalty.

Though the 29 year old defendant may have been, as his counsel will
try to show, “psychologically unconscious” at the time of the killing,
he was very much alert and observant yesterday.

Neatly dressed and groomed almost to the point where he might be called
dapper. Young kept careful tabs on the proceedings—so careful that his
counsel sometimes consulted long with him, and seemingly heeded his advice
when it came to exercising peremptory challenges.

The slight, blonde, square-jawed and very youthful looking defendant
seemed unworried by the fact that those proceedings may put him in the
lethal gas chamber at San Quentin.

JURY MAKEUP.

The jury, which will start listening to testimony when the trail reconvenes
this morning, consists of the following: